North Fork of the CDA drainge environmental issue and elevation maps

       I chose the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene for my project. The north fork of the CDA drainage flows into Coeur d'Alene lake. This drainage has a large mine that is located on the upper drainage of the river has had mining operations on it. These mines were producing large amounts of mining by products that were being put into the river. These mining deposits were of toxic chemicals and caused the population of native cutthroat trout in the river to almost go extinct. The mining deposits then ran downstream and flowed into lake Coeur d'Alene, which then flows into the Spokane River. The Spokane river has a naturally occurring population of redband trout and now these fish are longer safe to eat of the river because of their high levels of toxins from the mining deposits.The mines have since been cleaned up, but there is a still the occuring problem of the sediments that are left over in the bottom of Coeur d'Alene lake, which when the lake turns over every spring, an occurring biological process that allows the lower levels of the lake to be re-oxygenated, these sediments are then transported downstream into the Spokane drainage. Fish eat the invertebrate and other prey species that are ingesting these sediments from the debris that these sediments are attached to. This then causes problems to fish since they are ingesting these toxins. Other factors have been related to these mining deposits, such as; changes in the stream quality, increased sediment levels, and other factors as well.